


Working The Overnight Shift

by Doctopus



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Cisswap, F/F, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-19
Updated: 2014-04-19
Packaged: 2018-01-19 23:34:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1488247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Doctopus/pseuds/Doctopus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tumblr Prompt: "Your prompt: female-Cap / female-Bucky".</p>
            </blockquote>





	Working The Overnight Shift

Every evening, when the whistle blew, and she went to the factory, scarf on her head, her lunch was ready in the box next to her. She sat next to widows and newlyweds and mothers and made shells, and when the whistle blew again, she ate her lunch. Corned beef on plain bread, usually with a thermos of coffee. She’d sip and eat and think about what needed to be fixed at home, and when the whistle blew again she’d go back inside and continue making the small brassy shells that were to be shipped overseas. She dreamed about them, sometimes, a rain of brass running through her fingers, sitting in an ocean of potential death.

She preferred those dreams to the other ones.

When she finished her shift, she’d head home, the early hours giving way to the dawn light. The small apartment needed constant repair. Never enough money to move, but enough to work away, day in day out, patching holes and putting cloth insulation in. She’d check the stove was working properly, and wash with cold water. By the time she was done, her roommate would have breakfast ready, and she’d eat and go to bed. Seven hours later, she’d be up to start preparing for work, and pick up her lunch and walk to the factory.

She couldn’t say she hated her life. She couldn’t say she hated the war - she was making more money now than she had working as a waitress. She wasn’t pretty enough to get good tips, and hated having to smile at everyone she met, no matter how rude. When the call had gone out, she was one of the first to apply. Get in early, like she had, and get a good job when everyone else joined, like she had. It was simple math. She was good at simple math.

At times, during winter, counting the wracking coughs coming from the bedroom, she wished she wasn’t.

There were a few men, at the factory. The sick and the lame and the frail. Draft dodgers or old men. They were friendly enough. She’d had to put a firm stop to that around her line though. Flirting was fine on their own time, but Margot tended to cry when they talked to her. Her husband had taken a bullet in France, and hadn’t made it.

"If they keep bothering you, come talk to me, alright?" She’d tried to speak gently.

"Yes, cap’n." She didn’t know why the nickname had stuck. It just had. She’d mentioned enjoying those dumb propaganda comics once, and everyone had laughed and talked about how she had a crush. They hadn’t lasted, but the money had been good while they had. She’d clipped them out of the paper, even though Bucky had protested. She liked them, even if they still embarrassed Bucky.

"You’re a great artist." She never understood why the other girl couldn’t take a compliment. She always denied it, and they’d argue, and then Bucky would have a coughing fit and that trumped any argument she had. Everything became about getting her breathing again. It all shrank away.

They’d seen doctors. Pneumonia, asthma, mentions of her low weight and malnutrition. She’d wanted to strangle the bespectacled man who told her she should be feeding Bucky more fresh fruit. How the hell was she going to afford that and medicine?

"You shouldn’t spend so much on me."

"Shut up, Buck." Measuring out penicillin. She was sure she was getting overcharged. Apparently a lot of medicine was needed overseas. Something about a Hydra, whatever the hell that was. She’d smiled and played stupid and didn’t punch the pharmacist when he’d told her how much. Bucky needed it, and that mattered.

Sometimes, before she went to bed, they’d talk, during the warmer months, when Bucky’s breathing was better. About playing, as girls, and then some of their later adventures. Getting Bucky to draw caricatures on Rockaway beach. Sneaking out on a fake “date” to a couples only venue. Slashing the tires of a bully who’d thought a frail young girl an easy target.

"You looked good in a suit." She remembered well the thin frame wrapped in brown fabric and a tan shirt and tie. They’d danced and poked around the club. It had all been surprisingly boring, for a jazz lounge. She was too big and had too much hip for it to work. Bucky was thinner, less generous in her proportions.

"I looked like I was playing dress-up." The peevish answer.

"I liked it."

"You gave me that stupid nickname."

"Couldn’t use your real one, could we?" And she’d roll her eyes and they’d talk about moving into a nicer apartment when the war was over. Bucky always wanted news, about the Allies, how their fight was going. Whatever the hydra thing was, it was causing trouble, but apparently nothing that couldn’t be handled. She’d learned early on not to tell Bucky too much. She got excited, and with excitement…

It was a good summer though. After that, it was miserable cold, all winter. Drafts in the house, and Bucky confined to bed, and the factor never quite seemed to warm up enough. She ended up stealing a few blankets from a clothesline a few blocks east, dragging them home in the dark morning to warm them up and wrap up in, holding Bucky against her to keep the shivers at bay.

The cold went. The shivers didn’t.

She kept telling herself it was just a bad few months, as spring fell away and summer came back. Just a chill. She’d check the corners of the apartment again, seal the windows. They couldn’t afford a doctor, but she paid the landlord’s mother a few dollars they couldn’t spare to watch Bucky during the day. A lot of nights with the at times too-cold, and at times too-hot frame held to her. Talking, when they could. Talking was better than Bucky falling into a sleep she might not come out of.

"Why-" A cool drink of water, get the dryness out. "Why don’t you call me Stephanie anymore?"

_Because Stephanie was a pretty girl’s name, not a boy’s. Because at least if she was thinking about Bucky in his suit, she could justify it. Because people had always told her Stephanie Rogers wasn’t going to make it, and she should just give up._

"It was fun, back then."

Bucky closes her eyes, swallowing, mumbling. “I liked how you said my name. Sounded prettier.”

A few days later, as autumn blew in, standing at near a simple headstone, she wishes she had said Stephanie more. There’s a lot of things she wishes she had said. The words are many, but the meaning is the same, for almost all of it. She and the priest are the only ones there, and she doesn’t want to talk to him.

She wants Bucky, and want doesn’t equal get.

So she works, at the factory, making shells. She goes home to the cold apartment and packs her lunch in the evenings and thinks about nothing while she eats it. They keep saying the war’s almost over, that they’ve almost won. She’s not sure she cares. Even when they’re told the men are going to want their jobs back, she doesn’t think much on it.

When she’s fired, she goes home and packs. There’s not much, and she doesn’t care about a lot of it. Someone else can keep the furniture and plates. They can worry about the holes where the windows don’t quite fit and the wood stove that tends to go out when gusts come in. They haven’t mattered to her in a while.

Joyce Barnes doesn’t know where she’s going, but she doesn’t want to be here, in this quiet place that echoes with old words and lost time.

**Author's Note:**

> Please tell me what you thought in the comments below, and thank you for reading.


End file.
